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Jav’s cheeks were hot and wet before he realized it. He threw his arms around Sky and shook with anger, with grief. His side ached at the movement, but not as much as it had before.
Iseris staggered forward, stopping short when her eyes caught on the wound. “How did this happen?” she whispered.
He had the sense she was talking more to the horse than to him. Which should have bothered him more than it did. At this point, nothing bothered him. Nothing mattered.
They were almost dead. Sky was almost dead. Their pursuers couldn’t be far behind, and now, they’d taken his beloved horse from him.
Just like they’d take Iseris if they caught her.
When. When they caught her.
They were too weak. He was too weak. His injured side. Dying Sky. Iseris. The mare Pearl was uninjured but thoroughly exhausted. There would be no galloping to safety now.
Silently, he cursed the whole world. If this was Nefrana’s world, then who cared if he was in it?
Was this justice? Was this beauty? Was this truly the Way of Things?
It wasn’t right. It couldn’t be.
Head and side aching, he buried his face in Sky’s side and wept.
Chapter 16
Delirium
Shoving her hair back from her face, as more strands continued to come loose, Iseris tore her eyes from Jav’s anguish and focused on the horse’s wound. Sky’s hulking body seemed enormous, terrifying. Blood darkened the already black hair.
She was no healer, no medicine woman, no shaman. But in the books she’d read, they removed the arrow first, most of the time. Sometimes, they left it in if they were waiting to get to a healer.
But no one was coming to help them here. They were on their own.
Trying her best not to disturb Jav, she placed one palm on Sky’s side. Out flowed calm, in flowed the pain, the panic. For a moment, she was back on the stallion, she could feel its anger and fear.
Jav’s ragged breath pulled her back into the moment. Right. This was not the stallion. This was Sky, who needed her. Perhaps the stallion had needed her too, but she’d been too young, too afraid. Deliberately, she focused on the feel of the rocks beneath her knees, the sticky wet fur beneath her palm, and she urged Sky to feel her own growing calm. To steady, to heal.
With the other palm, she gripped the arrow and swiftly pulled.
Sky neighed his agony, but Jav just clung to him, which she decided was even more concerning than if he had actually tried to do something, however doomed they were.
The books all said press to stop the bleeding. So press she would.
Shaking, she pressed her hands over the bloody wound. Gouts of blood shot up in spurts between her fingers.
She pressed harder. The spurting stopped.
She shut her eyes, letting her instincts take over. She could imagine Sky well again. Or the easing of Jav’s grief. If only with her pressure, she could stop the bleeding. It’d be nice to be able to heal her own body too.
She glanced down at her feet. She should have been limping. Barely able to walk by now. But strangely, they felt a bit better. Still tender, still frost bitten in the snow.
But better.
Sighing, she pushed the force of her shoulders into the wound. She would never have asked him to come if she’d known it would put him in danger. What magic she had wouldn’t tell her the future. It wouldn’t tell her if her decisions were right or wrong.
What good was it then? The hell with magic.
Sky deserved to live. Jav deserved to live too. What if his injury was worse than he was letting on? Why was he hiding it so intently? Was it because he knew it was killing him? He was just the sort who wouldn’t have told her if it was.
Why couldn’t they just be okay? Why couldn’t they just get away from her father and Alekur and his lackies and live lives that didn’t hurt anyone, didn’t endanger anyone?
